Automated mobile positional social media method and system

ABSTRACT

A method, system, and/or apparatus for automatically tracking a mobile user using the user&#39;s mobile device. This invention is particularly useful in the field of social media, such as for detecting and tracking the location and activity of a user and her community. The method or implementing software application uses or relies upon location information available on the mobile device from any source, such as cell phone usage and/or other device applications. The social media system automatically determines a location type and/or user activity from context information. The context information can include current and past location and user and/or community information, time-dependent information, and third party information. The location activities can be presented to the community using pictograms selected to represent user activities.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation-in-part of each of: U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/051,071, filed on 10 Oct. 2013, and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/051,089, filed on 10 Oct. 2013. The co-pending parent applications are hereby incorporated by reference herein in their entirety and are made a part hereof, including but not limited to those portions which specifically appear hereinafter.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

This invention relates generally to the field of social media, and more particularly, to a method, system, and apparatus that detects, tracks, and automatically informs users of the location and activity of others.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Social media systems have permeated daily life. Information is collected, organized, and disseminated worldwide via informational collection and dissemination, micro-blogging and blogging services. Other social media are mobile and positional in nature and can be referred to as Mobile Positional Social Media (MPSM). As these systems focus on locations, mobile device implementations permeate the space. That said, however, while MPSM implementations are targeted to primarily execute on mobile devices, such as but not limited to smart-phones (e.g., Apple's iPhone, Google's Android), tablets (e.g., Apple's iPad, HP TouchPad), and laptop computers, they often support implementations for non-mobile environments such as but not limited to desktops and workstations, and large scale compute farms and cloud computing servers.

MPSM systems focus on locating users and notifying each other within their community of their respective locations or nearby content of interest. For example, Foursquare's application locates users and informs them of items of interest in their vicinity or the vicinity of their choice. Users are motivated to actively and manually “check-in” at their location with specificity rewarded. Rewards include “badges” and honors such as being named “Mayor.” Additional enticements are group texting facilities as provided by the likes of BrightKite. Other MPSM include but are not limited to Gowalla, Loopt, Jaiku, Plazes, and Fire Eagle.

One limitation of MPSM systems is their reliance on global positioning systems (GPS). The use of GPS devices does typically simplify location tracking implementation; however, this comes at a significant energy cost. Since a significant portion of MPSM systems usage is via mobile devices, reducing energy consumption is critical.

Another limitation of current MPSM systems is their reliance on active users identifying their location and/or their activity at the location. Another limitation of current MPSM systems is the limited modes of informational guidance provided to the user. For example, no reminders or instructional commenting is provided. That is, users are not reminded of activities that fit their given location and context in a push manner; rather, user inquiry of locally available options is needed. Ideally, given location and context users are proactively pushed information that is immediately relevant to them. Additionally, activities that are nearby to their current location or will become available can likewise be identified.

There is therefore a continuing need for improved MPSM systems and applications, including automated location/activity methods and systems, and improved user interfaces.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

This invention provides a method, system, and apparatus, such as embodied in a MPSM or other software application, that automatically determines and shares a location and/or an activity of a user. The application learns user activity over time, with the learning based upon user locations and/or context. The present invention generally provides methods and applications for a MPSM that automatically understands and informs the “who, what, when, where, and/or how” of a user and the user's community. For example, who are the user and their community with, what are the user and their community doing, where geographically are the user and their community, when are, and historically when were, the user and their community doing this, and/or how can users' behaviors be modified?

The invention includes a method of sharing locations and/or activities of a user participating in a social networking service. The method is executed by a software application stored and executed on one or more computers or data processor systems, such as a mobile device (e.g., phone, tablet, or laptop) and/or an application server (such as for connecting user communities). In one embodiment the method includes receiving user information about a destination, automatically associating the user information with the destination, and automatically sharing the user information in the social networking service upon further user arrivals at the destination prior to receiving any additional user information.

The invention further includes, at least in part, a method of or application for sharing locations and/or activities of a user participating in a social networking service that includes: receiving or otherwise determining a user activity for a location, automatically tagging the location with the user activity and storing the tagged location in a location database, automatically associating the user activity with the location after receiving the user activity for a plurality of user visits at the location, and automatically identifying the associated activity upon further user arrivals at the location without receiving additional user information.

The invention still further includes a computer server for providing a tracking and/or social networking service, such as operating the methods discussed herein. The computer server of one embodiment of this invention includes a tagging module configured to correlate user information to a user destination, a database module configured to store user information including user locations and user activities at the user locations, and a communication module configured to automatically share a user activity in the social networking service upon further user arrivals at a corresponding one of the user locations. The computer system can also include an association module configured to associate the user activity with the corresponding one of the user locations.

In embodiments of this invention, the system or application identifies locations, and over time, automatically “checks-in” not only the locations but what the locations imply in terms of potential activities of the user. That is, given a location and a user, the system desirably suggests what activity or activities the user typically partakes at that location. For example, if a user frequents a location in “Potomac,” this location might be identified as “parents' home.” Furthermore, at this home, a variety of activities might be common such as: “visiting parents,” “drinking tea,” “eating lunch,” or “sampling wine.” In embodiments of this invention, each time the user appears at that location, based on context, defined by elements of or surrounding the activity such as but not limited to time of day, day of week, immediately preceding activities, weather, surrounding people, etc., a set of likely occurring activities are identified. The user can be prompted with a list from which to select a subset of these activities or to identify a new activity. The invention can also include ranking a user's potential suggested activity based on context and presenting that ranked list to the user, or the user's community. The invention generally provides a learning component that can allow the manual inputs to become automatic prompts, which can become automatically issued notifications for the location based upon the context. The prompts can be issued through any known format, such as an application alert on the device or a text message to the user. The invention also supports the user changing activities for a given location at any time, and/or user implemented delay of the notification of a user's location or activity.

The invention can include the incorporation or creation of user communities and sub-communities, with such communities and sub-communities sharing information. Embodiments of the invention include automatically identifying a user's location and activity, and desirably notifying that user's community of that user's location. Particular embodiments of this invention provide one or more additional community functionalities including, without limitation, automatically identifying a user's activity and notifying that user's community of that user's activity, commenting on user activity and location report by user or community—with multiple and multimedia comments supported, supporting the “liking” of user activity by the community, supporting the user tagging of location, activity, or the pairing of location and identity—tagging can be textual or via any multimedia means, correlating the individual user's activity with the ongoing activity of others within the community, and/or correlating the individual user's activity with the past activities of others within the community.

One embodiment of this invention provides a method of and system for automated determining of locations and/or activities of a user participating in a social networking service. The method is executed by a MPSM computer system and automatically determines a positional destination of a user, automatically deduces as user information a location type and/or user activity of the positional destination, and automatically shares the user information as instructed in the social networking service. Deducing the user information is based upon context information about the positional destination, desirably with minimal or no input by the user. The context can include, without limitation, time-dependent information, past and/or current associated user information, past user and/or community information about the location, and/or third party information. The context can be used to at least reduce location types and/or user activities, for example, as a function of the past location type and/or user activity of the positional destination for a given time period.

Another limitation of current MPSM systems is their lack of individual and community activity summarization capability. That is, summary of the local user and community member activities and time durations are not available, neither to the local user nor to their community. This summarization can range from simple statistical aggregation to advanced correlations as derived by known techniques in the art. In embodiments of this invention, users are provided with summaries of their locations, durations at these locations, and activities at these locations. Furthermore, at the discretion of the local user, these summaries are made available to their community members. Particular embodiments of this invention provide one or more additional summarization functionalities including, without limitation, maintaining a history of user locations, activities, or combination thereof, correlating the individual user's activity with the past activities of the user, correlating the individual user's activity with the expected learned future activities of self, data mining behavioral patterns and suggesting alternatives to avoid obstacles, providing statistical aggregation of locations visited, providing derived summarization of locations visited, providing statistical aggregation of activities, providing derived summarization of activities, providing statistical aggregation and/or derived summarization of individuals (such as community members) encountered during a time period.

The invention further includes the use of one or more pictograms to indicate current, past, and likely and already scheduled future activities of community members. Pictograms can be manually or automatically associated with activities at a given location; the location of interest either being, will be, or was previously visited by a community member or is of relevance to a user request. The system can receive one or more user-defined pictograms for a destination, automatically associate the pictogram with the destination, and automatically share the pictogram in the social networking service upon further user arrivals at the destination prior to receiving any additional user information. Pictograms can be changed and have further photos or data associated or linked thereto for community review and/or comment. After receiving pictograms for at least one visit to a location or information that is transcribed to pictograms regarding the location, information being obtained through other means, such as but not limited to external databases, social media forums, or purchased information, the system desirably automatically associates and shares, such as using the methods described herein, the appropriate pictogram with the appropriate user community.

The method and application of this invention further allows for targeted advertisement to the user based on locations and activity preferences. Embodiments of the invention can also include automated loyalty program tracking and/or preferred user tracking and arrival functions.

Other objects and advantages will be apparent to those skilled in the art from the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the appended claims and drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 shows a representative area of a user of one embodiment of this invention.

FIG. 2 illustrates geofences surrounding a current reading and its immediate neighbors according to one embodiment of this invention.

FIG. 3 illustrates the determination of a location via intersecting circles according to one embodiment of this invention.

FIG. 4 illustrates the processing flow employed to identify an arrival according to one embodiment of this invention.

FIG. 5 illustrates a system view location summary of an individual user according to one embodiment of this invention.

FIG. 6 illustrates a system view transit summary of an individual user according to one embodiment of this invention.

FIG. 7 illustrates a system view activity summary of an individual user according to one embodiment of this invention.

FIG. 8 illustrates a system view time location breakdown in comparison to other users according to one embodiment of this invention.

FIG. 9 illustrates a system view a listing of activities shared with other users according to one embodiment of this invention.

FIG. 10 illustrates a view presented to users that quantifies their shared patterns according to one embodiment of this invention.

FIG. 11 illustrates a view presented to users summarizing their weekly behavior according to one embodiment of this invention.

FIG. 12 illustrates a view presented to a user of his and his community's activities in a pictogram format, according to one embodiment of this invention.

FIGS. 13-15 illustrate various pictogram summaries for user activities.

FIGS. 16-18 illustrate adding photos to pictograms and changing pictograms.

FIGS. 19 and 20 show rapid review of photos according to one embodiment of this invention.

FIGS. 21-25 illustrate rapid review of photos according to one embodiment of this invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

This invention includes a method, system, and/or apparatus, such as embodied in a MPSM or other software application, that automatically determines and shares a location and/or an activity of a user. The application learns user activity over time, with the learning based upon user locations and/or context. The application can learn through automatically determining activities at locations based upon known context information and past context information for the location. The invention further includes energy saving location methods for the mobile device that can be used to more efficiently allow the location and social media aspects of the invention to be implemented on a mobile device. The method and application can be used for any suitable function, such as a safety and/or reminder serves, and is particularly useful for use in social media applications. The invention will be described below with implementation in a MPSM system, and particularly with an MPSM application that learns user activity over time, with the learning based upon user locations and/or context.

The method and system of this invention is mobile and positional in nature. Such systems, like many other systems originally developed on one type of computing platform but migrated to another, operate not only on mobile environments. That is, while MPSM implementations are targeted to primarily execute on mobile devices, such as but not limited to smart-phones, tablets, and/or laptops, they often support implementation for non-mobile environments such as but not limited to desktops and workstations, servers, and large scale compute farms and cloud computing servers. The invention will be described below with a mobile device, such as smart phone having cell service, a GPS system, and access to the Internet via WiFi.

The method and system of this invention is desirably executed or implemented on and/or through a mobile device computing platform. Such computing platforms generally include a processor, a recordable medium, an input/output (I/O) device, and a network interface capable of connecting either directly or indirectly to the Internet. The mobile device executes over a networked environment, a non-limiting example shown in FIG. 1. The mobile device is connected, either directly or indirectly, using any of the many techniques and technologies known in the art, over a network, to back-end system or systems, itself/themselves computing devices. The mobile device can connect with a remote server, shown in FIG. 1 as server 38, to store and/or access user or community information.

MPSM systems are used to support users remaining socially aware of their community. That is, their primary usage typically is to actively monitor the location and activity of family members, friends, colleagues, and generally others within one's community. Communities can be partitioned into sub-communities where the union of the sub-communities forms the user's community. The sub-communities may or may not overlap. The partitioning of communities into sub-communities is beneficial in supporting specialized applications. For example, while a user might have general interest in the location and activity of all of their community members, they might be particularly interested in the location and activity of those who might be suddenly in need of assistance.

Regardless of the community size, besides tracking users to potentially provide immediate assistance, medical environments that support state-of-being can capitalize on MPSM systems. State-of-being applications can detect abnormal patterns in a user's behavior or physical presence. By learning typical behavior of an individual regularly using a MPSM system according to embodiments of this invention, abnormality in behavior can be detected, and an alarm issued. It is within the scope of this invention to additionally incorporate data and information from health monitoring applications known in the art that are likewise resident on the mobile device to support state-of-being applications. Similarly, in community activities that require continuous monitoring and coordination, such as but not limited to an emergency response team or a neighborhood watch or other surveillance efforts, MPSM systems according to this invention can provide the necessary infrastructure to support the needed synchronization.

The creation of a community can include the issuing of invitations. An invitation is a request by a user A of another user B to allow the inviting user, user A, to track the activities of the invited user, user B, and vice versa. If the invited user accepts, the inviting and invited users form a community.

A community is relevant to only that user which formed it. That is, different users have different communities. A community is a grouping of invited (referred to as remote) users by the inviting (referred to as local) user. A local user can partition or merge a community, thus forming a sub-community or a parent community, respectively. For example, consider 5 users: Bob, Sam, Sally, Alice, and Susan. Bob can invite Sam, Sally, and Alice, thus forming his user community. Bob can likewise partition his community into a sub-community consisting of only Sam and Sally. Sally can invite Susan. Thus, Sally's community would include Bob (via his invitation) as well as Susan. If no additional invites occurred, Sam's and Alice's respective communities would only include Bob (each via Bob's invitation), while Susan's community would only include Sally (via Sally's invitation).

Providing users with the opportunity to expand their communities in a convenient manner is advantageous. Such expansion can seamlessly be accommodated by including users listed in a user's contact lists either as a whole or selectively into their community. Contact lists include, but are not limited to, users listed in a user's local address book, e-mail contact list, Twitter follow list, LinkedIn connections list, and/or Facebook friends list. By incorporating users listed in a user's contact list, the user's community is expanded without effort. Note, however, that selected inclusion can be supported; thus enabling community growth without unnecessarily over-expanding the community. That is, entries from the contact list can be included in their entirety and the user can selectively remove those entries which s/he wishes to be excluded from the community. Similarly, entries from the contact list can be selectively added.

Users are identified by their account identifier. To use MPSM a user account is created. User accounts generally require a user login, which is a unique user identifier, and a password or equivalent. After having created an account, a user can log in. Initially, the local user does not have a community. In embodiments of this invention, over time, the method and application tracks the activities and location of the local user. Should the local user establish a community as aforementioned described, the community members will likewise be tracked. Local users receive notifications of the location and activities of their community members. Once logged in, the local user can select to activate or deactivate self and community tracking and notification. If not overwritten, default settings are used.

Whenever logged in and tracking is enabled, a user's location and activity is tracked. That is, a user periodically records their location and/or activity. Locations are tagged by name. Names can be but are not limited to the following schemes: physical (e.g., 123 Oak St.), absolute (e.g., Acme Coffee), and/or relative (e.g., my work office), or proximity (e.g., two miles from home). Activities are typically events. These events might be common to the entire community such as: “drinking coffee,” “eating lunch,” “sampling wine,” “working from home,” “commuting,” etc., to more specific to a local user such as “restoring car” or “driving to lake home.” Multiple activities can occur simultaneously. Users can change their activities at any time.

Unless preloaded or derived from an external source, such as but not limited to a location database, initially, all locations and activities are unknown. Local users must record all such location-activity combinations, i.e., a local user must name or tag the location and the associated activity. A list of activities common to the local user's community can be provided. This community activity list can be ranked either arbitrarily (randomly), according to most recently used, most frequently used, relevance to location, alphabetically, etc. Eventually, an activity list specific to the local user is learned. This local user activity list can be displayed to the local user either individually, along with the community list, or merged with the community list. Again, any of these lists can be ranked as previously mentioned.

FIG. 1 illustrates a representative area 30 to demonstrate a method of and application for locations and/or activities of a user participating in a social networking service. The area 30 is shown as a cellular communication network including a plurality of cells 32 each disposed around a cellular communication antennae or base station 36. Within the area are a plurality of destinations each shown as including a WiFi Internet connection. The local user has one or more electronic devices, such as a mobile device that communicates with a remote server 38 via the cellular network and/or the WiFi connections. As will be appreciated the methods and applications of this invention can operate within any suitable size and configuration of the communication area, depending on what the user encounters.

Destination 40 is the home of the user. The user commutes to office 42 for work on most business days. On the way the user typically stops at the coffee shop 41. For lunch on most days, the user visits restaurant 43, but on Wednesdays the user typically meets a second user for lunch at restaurant 44.

At each destination 40-44, the user enters user information about the destination. The application and computer system that receives the user information automatically associates the user information with the destination, and stores the user information in a locations database, such as on the device and/or at server 38. The destination desirably is determined automatically and tagged with the user information, such as a location name of the destination and/or the user activity being performed at the destination. For example, destination 40 can be tagged as “home” and likely has numerous activities associated with it. The destination 41 can be tagged as its establishment name “Acme Coffee” or simply “coffee shop” and associated with the user activity of “buying coffee” or “latte time.” The manually entered user information can then be automatically shared to the user's community in a social networking service. Similar user information is received for the other destinations 42-44. The user information desirably includes any other information about the location or activity, whether manually entered or automatically determined, such as the time of the visit or activity. Some destinations, such as home or work will likely have multiple user activities over a period of time, such as “coffee break,” “meeting time,” and/or “quitting time.”

The computer system receives user information and associates the user information with the corresponding destination for multiple visits to each of the destinations 40-44. The computer system begins learning the locations and user activities. In embodiments of this invention, the user can be automatically prompted for confirmation of the user information upon arriving at a destination to confirm the location and/or user activity. For example, the user can be provided with an automatically generated list of previously entered user activities for the destination upon arrival, thereby promoting efficient collection of information. The items on the list can be listed in an order based upon a particular ranking, such as number of times entered previously or based upon a context, such as what activity is likely being performed at a particular time of a particular day.

Over time, the computer system learns the user information and begins automatically associating and identifying at least some user activities for corresponding locations. As will be appreciated, the automatic identifying of activities at locations will likely occur at different rates for different activities and locations, with some locations having fewer activities and/or more frequent visits than others. In preferred embodiments of this invention, the system automatically shares the user information in a social networking service upon automatically detecting further user arrivals at the destination. The automatic sharing of user locations and/or activities desirably occurs upon the user's arrival at the location, or at a particular time at the location. As such the invention includes an automatic detection of the user's arrival at a destination. The automatic sharing desirably operates without user action and prior to receiving any additional user information for the destination.

As an example, the user may typically purchase lunch at destination 43, but on Wednesdays typically goes to lunch with a friend or spouse at destination 44. The lunch routines of the user, and particularly the Wednesday lunch routine, can be learned by the system and automatically shared to the user's community upon the system automatically determining arrival, without manually input from the user. If the user is having lunch with a community member, then the system can automatically determine that both users are at the same location together to automatically recognize and confirm the lunch activity, and proceed to automatically share the information for both user's to their respective communities. If the user deviates from a routine, the system can know this, and refrain from sharing the typical destination, by the mobile device detecting a different location than the typical routine destination.

In embodiments of this invention, learning is accomplished by any known machine learning, data mining, and/or statistical techniques known in the art. Supervised, semi-supervised, and/or unsupervised approaches can be used, including, but not limited to Naïve Bayes, Neural Networks, Support Vector Machine, and/or Associating Mining based techniques.

The invention desirably records all posted locations and activities. Throughout use, the disclosed invention learns the corresponding locations and the set of associated activities. More so, via comments made by the local user and by the local user's communities, the importance of the activities can be learned, such as for the prompting discussed above. Importance can be either local user or community biased. Additionally, importance can be biased by context. For example, community members as a whole might prefer “eating steak,” “eating pizza,” and “eating sushi,” in that respective order. On the other hand, a local user might only eat sushi. Thus, local user bias will yield “eating sushi” only, while community bias will suggest “eating steak,” “eating pizza,” and “eating sushi,” in that respective order.

In embodiments of this invention, locations are named according to a naming convention. Regardless of the naming convention used, a location is a physical geographical position. More so, physical geographic locations associate properties that can vary with or be dependent on context, namely time and date (hours, day of week, calendar date, etc.), users involved, and their relationships to each other, etc. This context can affect the associated location name or activity.

A common scheme that can be used to at least assist in identifying a physical geographical location is via the use of geocoding. Geocoding is the representation of a physical location via the pairing of latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates commonly referred to as a lat-long pair. Global Positioning Systems (GPS) can also determine a physical position coordinated via the triangulation of satellite transmissions. Typically GPS devices derive lat-long pairs which are made available to a variety of applications, often via map displays. GPS economics, accuracy, and simplicity of use resulted in their wide appeal and commercial success. Their continuous use in mobile devices is problematic, however, as they are energy intensive and rapidly drain the battery. Thus, alternative means or approaches to detect locations are desired.

Embodiments of this invention, as discussed above in FIG. 1, use or rely upon cell coordinates. When mobile devices communicate with a cell tower, they send their cell coordinates. These coordinates are recorded by the cell provider and are typically not publicly known. The cell phone or, in this case, the mobile device supporting the positional social media system, however, is aware of their coordinates. Thus, the device can store the cell coordinate position and automatically associate that cell coordinate with the location name provided by the local user. Over time, a location database of cell coordinate and named location pairs is created. The local portion of the database favors the local user. The union of all the local portions of the location database desirably constitutes the name space of the entire MPSM system of this invention. It is understood that any of the many database management systems or storage schemes known in the art can serve as the platform for this location database. Thus, location names can be provided without the need to rely on a global positioning system, reducing battery consumption. Location data can additionally or alternatively be purchased or otherwise provided by a third party.

An additional and/or alternative approach for automatic location determination relies on WiFi triangulations. Mobile devices can grow and maintain a database of known open WiFi networks, for clarity we call this database an Open-WiFi-Net database. Such mobile devices can use the information stored or derived from the information stored in the Open-WiFi-Net database to further reline the accuracy of a location without the use of GPS. Via point triangulation, when an Open-WiFi-Net database is available, the mobile operating system uses not only the cell tower but also WiFi triangulations to determine location. It is within the scope of this invention to use either or both cell-phone and WiFi triangulations to enhance location information in addition to any other disclosed approach. The mobile device can use the WiFi signal at a destination, such as destination 43, and additionally or alternatively any detectable open WiFi signal from a neighboring location, such as establishment 45 that is adjacent destination 43.

Having created the location database, searching, namely querying, the database uses the cell coordinate or the location name. That is, a location name query takes a location name as input and returns the corresponding cell coordinate. A cell coordinate query takes a location name as input and returns the corresponding location name. Note that, multiple names can be attributed to a given cell coordinate. That is, a local user might name a location using multiple different names; different users can name same locations using different names. Similarly, the same name can be used for different cell coordinate locations. All names corresponding to a given cell coordinate are returned. It is within the scope of this invention to selectively return names based on context, user, or community bias. Similarly, all cell coordinates corresponding to a given name are returned. Again, it is within the scope of this invention to selectively return coordinates based on context, user, or community bias. Ranking of the results returned can, when desired, be biased towards the local user.

A key concern for MPSM systems is collecting location information. Clearly any location information available within the mobile device should be harnessed. Thus, if GPS readings or any other location information is generated by other device resident applications, these readings are desirably recorded and utilized by the method and application of this invention. However, reliance on strictly other applications to obtain positional information is obviously not realistic or possible.

In embodiments of this invention, positional information is obtained via the use of geofences. A geofence is geographical boundary or “fence” surrounding a positional reading. As these boundaries are radius based, geofences are generally circular. Location transmission occurs whenever a handover of one cell tower to another occurs and is expected but not guaranteed to occur once a geofence boundary is crossed. To track location, periodic location transmissions are required. Since location transmissions must be minimized to conserve device energy, transmissions should only occur given geographical movement. Thus, crossing a geofence should generate such a transmission. Unfortunately, as crossing a geofence does not guarantee a location transmission, increasing the likelihood of a transmission is necessary.

In contrast to the known uses that surround a location with a single geofence, to increase the likelihood of a location transmission during movement, embodiments of this invention include surrounding a location geofence with a plurality of geofences. In one embodiment of this invention, a method of tracking a user includes determining a location of the mobile user, automatically establishing a first geofence around the location, and automatically establishing a plurality of additional geofences around the first geofence, with each geofence including a boundary. A location transmission is obtained by the mobile device upon crossing a boundary of the first geofence or any of the plurality of additional geofences. Multiple neighboring geofences are advantageous since they increase the likelihood of a location transmission as their boundaries are likewise likely to be crossed given movement.

FIG. 2 representatively illustrates a geofence 60 surrounding a current location 62. The geofence 60 is surrounded by additional geofences 64, all within a given cellular tower transmissions cell 65. Note that part of a neighboring geofence 64′ is not fully within the cell 65, and hence, limits its benefits since a cell tower handoff by movement into cell 65′ will generate a location transmission.

Geofences are implemented as software processes. Operating systems for mobile devices, such as but not limited to iOS and Android, limit the number of processes available to an application, and thus, the number of geofences is bounded. However, this limit typically exceeds the number of geofences generated using the approach described above. Therefore, additional processes are available, and hence, additional geofences are possible.

To increase the likelihood of a location transmission given movement, in embodiments of the invention, the remaining available processes implement static geofences. A static geofence is not dynamically generated given a new location as previously described. Rather, a static geofence is one that is fixed and represents those locations that are likely to be crossed by a given user. That is, users are habitual and frequent a limited set of locations often, for example but not limited to, their home, office, or favorite wine or sushi bar. By learning the frequent locations of users both individually and system wide and setting static geofences at these locations, biasing by the individual user, the probability of a location transmission is increased since additional geofences are likely crossed.

More so, these repeated locations vary by city, county, state, country, etc., as well as by other factors such as but not limited to day and time. Geographical and temporal presence can thus be used to vary the set of static geofences for a given user. For example, the set of static geofences for a given user will vary if the user is in Washington, D.C. rather than in San Francisco, Calif. Similarly, the set of static geofences for a given user will vary depending on the day and time. For example, a user frequents work on weekday mornings but frequents their favorite bagel shop on Sunday mornings and their favorite sushi bar on Thursday evenings.

Location transmissions suffer from a margin of error. Thus, it is difficult to precisely pinpoint and tag a location with a single transmission. Embodiments of this invention include automatic refining of a location of a user destination as a function of user routines, such as established by several user visits to the destination. As time progresses however, and a user frequents the same location multiple times, multiple location transmissions for the same location are recorded. In one embodiment of this invention, as representatively shown in FIG. 3, by overlapping the transmitted location along with its margin of error, a more accurate location can be derived. The overlapping of location transmissions for a given location 70 between streets 72 and within geofence 74, along with their margin of errors, represented as circles 76, yields an accurate location placement.

As shown in FIG. 3, location accuracy improves as related data are collected. Related data, however, can, at times, be somewhat erroneous (in terms of accuracy). A non-limiting example is an entrance to a shopping mall. Such an entrance is not necessarily at the center of the complex. Regardless of the entrance displacement from the center of the complex, the entrance location can still be used to increase location accuracy of the mall complex since the readings for the entrance are consistent. That is, for a given user, given mobile device, given carrier, etc., such location recordings remain consistent, all be it, slightly erroneous. Thus, even dirty, namely potentially inaccurate, data can result in correct location identification.

Additionally, having established a location, corresponding lat-long pair coordinates can be reversed engineered, namely mapped back onto, a place name. These derived lat-long pair coordinates become yet an additional information component that is used by a learning system to better refine a mapping to a named place. Machine learning, data mining, and statistical approaches that are supervised, semi-supervised, or unsupervised can be used, as known in the art, to cross-correlate all available location related data.

Once determined, the user information including the location and/or the user activities are automatically stored in a database. Embodiments of this invention include a computer server for providing and implementing the tracking and/or social networking service of this invention. The computer server includes a location module to determine the user location and/or a tagging module configured to correlate manually entered user information to a user destination and a database module configured to store user information including user locations and user activities at the user locations. For social media sharing, the server further desirably includes a communication module configured to automatically share a user activity in the social networking service upon further user arrivals at a corresponding one of the user or community locations. The server can also include an association module configured to associate the user activity with the corresponding user location.

Since location transmissions are needed during movement, the obvious question arises: when should the transmissions cease? That is, the system must determine when the user has arrived at a location to know when to perform the automatic steps discussed above. As discussed above, GPS systems are an energy drain on a mobile device, particularly as the GPS remains on and linked with the satellites to maintain location detection. Keeping a GPS application operating is a drain on both the processor and the battery of the mobile device. This invention provides a method and executable application that conserves energy by not continually running during use of the mobile device.

Embodiments of this invention provide an automated method of tracking a mobile user that includes providing a location module configured to receive location transmissions, placing the location module into a sleep mode, awakening the location module upon receipt of a location transmission, and determining a location with the location module. These placing, awakening, and determining steps are repeated, thereby placing the application into a sleep mode when not needed, thereby reducing the drain on the mobile device. The application goes into sleep mode when necessary or when desired, such as when the application is not needed, e.g., during extended movement or upon an arrival at a location. In embodiments of this invention, the application can go into sleep mode whenever a time since the device awakening exceeds a predetermined time allocation, or upon a determined rate of travel exceeding a predetermined threshold, thereby indicating extended travel.

FIG. 4 illustrates one exemplary, and non-limiting, method according to an embodiment of this invention to automatically detect arrival at a destination. The method is useful for tracking a user's location for any of various reasons, including, for example, for safety, to provide automated reminders, and/or to provide automated suggestions to the user based upon the destination and/or surrounding area. The method of FIG. 4 is particularly useful for implementing the method and system discussed above, and can be used to implement other applications and method to provide energy savings compared to GPS location methods in mobile devices.

FIG. 4 includes a flow chart 100 that includes and/or represents three distinct situations, namely, an actual arrival, rapid movement, and sporadic movement without an actual arrival. Initially, the application is in sleep mode. Sleep mode is a state when no processing, and hence no energy consumption, takes place. Processing occurs once the application is awoken. A location transmission, such as a cell tower transmission or another application obtaining location information, awakens the application in step 102. Since the application awakening occurs due to a location transmission, the current location is known.

Once awakened, the application typically has a maximum amount of time to complete its processing. This limit, called time allotment, is set by the device operating system. All processing must complete prior to exceeding the time allotment. Ideally, the application should relinquish the processing flag back to the device operating system before the operating system forcefully removes the application from its active queue. Voluntarily terminating an application, namely returning it to the sleep mode, rather than having it forcefully terminated by the host operating system, is consider good citizenship. In step 104, the application initializes two timers, namely, a timer count representing the duration of time the process has executed since last awakening, and a stationary count representing the duration of time since the last detected device movement.

As time progresses and the process executes, the timer count is incremented in step 106. In one embodiment of this invention, whenever the application processing time exceeds the operating system time allocation (108—YES branch), the application is voluntarily placed in sleep mode 105. Note that the time allocation threshold is not necessary, but set to support good citizenship.

Assuming that the time limit has not been reached (108—NO branch), the application waits for t time units in step 110. After waiting t time units, new current location data are obtained is step 112 and stored locally on the device in step 114. In step 116, the current location is compared to the previously known location. If the two locations differ (116—NO branch), the rate of travel is computed in 118. If the rate of travel exceeds a threshold (120—YES branch), the process is desirably and voluntarily placed in sleep mode 122. Rapid travel is unlikely to result in an immediate or near term arrival; thus, checking locations while moving rapidly unnecessarily uses device energy. Eventually, the application process is awoken with the device moving at a slower rate. At that time, location checking is needed as an arrival might soon occur. If or when the rate of travel is slow (120—NO branch), movement is noted in step 124, and the loop is repeated commencing with the indication that additional processing time has elapsed in step 106.

Thus far, the arrival detection process has been voluntarily placed in sleep mode either due to having exceeded the self-imposed processing allotment quota which is desirably set just slightly below the operating system's time limit that leads to the removal of the application from the active queue (108—YES branch) or having traveled too rapidly (120—YES branch). Slow travel has resulted in simply recording the locations traveled, noting the movement exists in step 124, and awaiting either arrival or process termination.

Arrival is determined when the same location is detected for a sufficient duration of time. That is, an arrival is potentially determined when the location remains the same (116—YES branch). The stationary detection count is then incremented in step 126. If the stationary threshold is not yet exceeded (128—NO branch), the application waits for t time units in step 110, and the current location is obtained in step 112 and stored locally in step 114. A sufficient and predetermined duration at the same location eventually surpass the arrival detection threshold (128—YES Branch).

Once arrival is determined, arrival is declared in step 130, all data regarding the prior locations visited and stored locally are compressed and sent to the back end system supporting the application in step 132. A new location checkpoint is established in step 134, and the process is placed in sleep mode 136. From the sleep modes, the process of FIG. 4 repeats upon a known location.

Compression of location data is typically performed prior to local device to back-end system transmission as often the location data many not be needed at the back end. Location data may not be needed in cases, for example but not limited, during rapid travel. Although exemplified as having data compression occur prior to the sending of the data to the back-end, it is within the scope of this invention to compress location data prior to storing them locally.

All parameters described above for FIG. 4, for example t (for the time units), timer count, etc., are system and device dependent. Experimentation with and fine tuning of these and other parameters is within the scope of this invention. Also within the scope of this invention is the tuning of these and other parameters via the use of machine learning, data mining, and statistical approaches; supervised, semi-supervised, and unsupervised approaches can be used.

As discussed above, once the user has arrived at a destination, the location identification, user activities at the location, and/or any proximate third party members of the user's community are determined, if not already known. In this way, the devices automatically continually determine locations which can be used to identify any establishments and/or any community members at or within proximity to the location.

User activities are actions or events. Example user activities include but are not limited to “drinking wine,” “flying,” “reading,” “attending conference,” or “commuting.” Users specify a particular user activity either by selecting from a provided list or by entering a different user activity. As discussed above, the provided list is generated by storing all previously entered user activities from all systems users but biasing the ranking of the provided activities based on context, the local user, their community, or a combination thereof.

All location and user activity pairs are stored in a database correlating the location with the activity. Any of the many database management systems or storage schemes known in the art can serve as the platform for this location-activity database. Furthermore, it is well understood in the art that the location-activity database can store many additional features. For example, the user identity and date and time of the pair are recorded.

Over time, the database grows and contains a sufficient number of pairs to support mining. The volume of data needed to mine correlations is dependent on the mining algorithm deployed and the level of accuracy needed. As known in the art, there are many machine learning, data mining, and statistical approaches to support mining. By using any of the many available such approaches, either individually or in combination, a local user activity preference per location is learned. Example learning approaches include supervised, semi-supervised, and unsupervised approaches including but not limited to Naïve Bayes, Neural Networks, Support Vector Machine, and Associating Mining based techniques. The use of proprietary mining techniques is likewise within the scope of this invention. Once local user preference is learned, this preference is used to bias the aforementioned provided user activity list.

There are many approaches to identify locations. Automated location identification is accomplished by periodic checking of the current location. Periodicity of checking depends on, for example, the method used to determine the location, the desired frequency of reporting, recording, and notification, and the resources available to support the checking. Other periodicity determination approaches known in the art can likewise be used. One approach to automate location identification is the periodic determination of lat-long pairs via the use of a GPS device. An online service or a locally resident database can be used to correlate the GPS readings with locations. A preferred embodiment of this invention uses the aforementioned location database. Whenever a transmission to a connected cell tower is made, the cell coordinates of the transmitting device are used as a search query against the location database. If a match is detected, that location is identified. Another preferred embodiment detects locations upon the crossing of geofence boundaries as previously discussed. Note that both dynamically determined geofence boundaries and static geofence boundaries detect a location. Yet another preferred embodiment detects locations by capitalizing on location transmissions generated by any other application operating on the mobile device requesting location information.

In embodiments of this invention, local users, unless disabled by a local user, can be provided with automated notifications for themselves and for their community members. These notifications describe locations, activities, or correlated locations and activities for themselves and their community members. For example, unless disabled by the user, any time a user arrives at a new location, the local user and their communities can be notified of the user's new location. Automated location detection and notification, unless disabled, occurs without requiring a local user prompt.

Similarly, activity notification can be automated. Once a user arrives at a location, a set of activities previously occurring at that location is shared with the community or provided to the local user for information or sharing. If the user chooses to confirm at least one of these past activities, both the local user and their respective community members are notified of this at least one activity.

In another embodiment of this invention, automated notification involves shared experiences. A shared experience is one that associates multiple users. These associations can be passive or active. A passive association is strictly informative in nature while an active association requests an action. Non-limiting examples of passive shared experiences based on locations include: “User A is at User A's office, as is User B” and “User A is at home as is User C.” Note that the first example involves multiple users at the same physical location, namely User A's office, while the second example involves multiple users at the same relative locations, namely their homes, but at different physical locations.

Similarly, passive shared experience notifications can be based on user activity. Non-limiting examples of passive shared experiences based on activity include: “User A is eating lunch as is User B” and “User A is participating in her favorite sport as is User B.” Note that the first example involves multiple users participating in the same activity, namely eating lunch, while the second example involves multiple users involved in similar nature of activities, namely participating in their own favorite sport, which can be different actual activities, namely racquetball and swimming. In both passive shared experiences based on location and on activity, known in the art machine learning, data mining, and statistical approaches that are supervised, semi-supervised, or unsupervised approaches can be used to correlate relative locations and activities to physical locations and activities.

Other shared experiences can prompt for action, and are thus considered active. A non-limiting example of an active shared experience prompting for action includes: “User A posted a picture when at Penn Station; you are now at Penn Station; please post a better picture?” Thus, active shared experiences request the user to actively react. As above, active shared experiences can be location or activity based and can be absolute or relative. Note that it is likewise within the scope of this invention that individual user notifications be active and passive, in a similar manner as described above. However, the correlation of locations and activities both for passive and active are based strictly on the current, past, or projected expected activities of the individual user rather than those of multiple users.

Typically, only changed locations and activities are notified. That is, a location or activity is not typically repeatedly identified. However, a local user can request repetitive notifications based on any triggering condition known in the art.

Local users do not always remember to indicate a new location name or confirm which of the possible suggested name or names the system indicated for the given the location. As such, it is at times advantageous to prompt the local user for information. However, overly aggressive prompting might annoy the user. In embodiments of this invention, the application non-invasively prompts the user upon detecting an unknown location for the given local user. To avoid annoyance, prompting is repeated only rarely, say twice; the number of repeated prompts can be set as a parameter. Similarly, to provide a sense of comfort, if the back-end system recognizes the location based on the local user's community members' naming schemes, it prompts the local user with guiding messages, for example but not limited to “Many of your community members call this location The Tasting Room”.

Identification of activities associated with a given location or a given community member can be additionally or alternatively automatically inferred in multiple ways. In embodiments of this invention, the computer system can automatically determine a positional destination of a user, such as by using a mobile device discussed herein, and automatically deduce as user information a location type and/or user activity of the positional destination. The user information can be deduced, at least in part, based upon the destination context. Exemplary context information includes, without limitation, time-dependent information (e.g., what time of day is it?), community information (e.g., who is also there?), and/or third-party information about the positional destination. This method, tied with automatic sharing of the user information in a social networking service, can provide a partially or fully automated process for determining user location and activity.

In one embodiment of this invention, the automatic deducing of the user information is based upon known or learned user routine. As discussed above, local users typically follow standard routines. Some routines are daily, weekly, monthly, etc. Other routines are context dependent. Regardless of the nature of the routine, learning via any of the many statistical, machine learning, data mining, or business analytical techniques known in the art, enables predictive behavior and automated activity and location suggestion. For example, but not limited to, if a local user always goes out to lunch at noon on every weekday, then if an unknown location is detected on a Tuesday at noon, then the application can suggest that this unknown location is likely a restaurant and the activity is likely eating lunch. Similarly, routine identification enables the prevention of transmissions both positional and informational. For example, but not limited to, if a local user always goes to sleep at midnight on Sunday through Thursday and awakens at 7:00 am the following day, then energy can be saved if the application voluntarily places itself in sleep mode during the hours that the local user is known to be sleeping. Additionally, routines can involve a sequence of activities and locations. A non-limiting example of a sequence of activities includes: On weekdays, Eric arrives at his office at 8:00 am, drinks coffee at 10:00, develops software from 11:00 am until 5:00 pm, commutes home at 5:30, and finally, arrives at home at 6:00 pm.

Another location and/or activity deduction approach is by association. The automated deducing can include automatically associating a user with a second user at a positional destination. If the second user's location and/or second user's activity is known, then the system can automatically infer the location type and/or user activity of the first user from the second user location and/or activity. Consider a previous known event such as: “Community member Sally swimming at the Somerset pool”, assuming that the Somerset pool location was previously identified. As an example of automatically determining a current activity of community user Sam, the system identifies through location determination that Sam is currently at the same location as Sally, and also that Sally is currently at the Somerset pool. From this information, possible automatically postulated associations and activities are: “Sam is at the Somerset pool”, “Sally is swimming”, and “Sam is swimming”. Thus, it is possible to infer an activity for a community member from association with another community member. It is within the scope of this invention to use any logical inference methods known in the art to generate plausible associations. It is also within the scope of this invention to obtain confirmation of the plausible postulated activity by the community member, in this case Sam, by asking either Sam or Sally or by any other means known in the art.

Desirably the computer system operating the MPSM automatically stores past user information, including past location type and/or user activity of the positional destinations of all users. User information for future visits to repeat positional destinations can be automatically deduced as a function of the stored past location type and/or user activity of the positional destination. In embodiments of this invention, the system can rely on recorded previous activities of a user, a community member, or any system user at a given location to postulate on a user's activity at a given location. Past context information for past visits to the positional destination by the user and/or community members of the user can be compared to a current context of the user's visit to the positional destination to deduce the user information. In one embodiment, the system can reduce possible location types and/or user activities as a function of the past location type and/or user activity of the positional destination.

As an example, at a given Location A, users previously studied, talked, ate, and drank. Thus, if a user's positional destination is detected as at Location A, then plausible activities postulated can be studying, talking, eating, and drinking. More so, if the given user's community members only previously talked, ate, and drank, it is with a higher probability to postulate that the given user is talking, eating, and drinking rather than studying. Furthermore, if the given user visited Location A previously, but only talked and drank, then an even higher probability is that the user is currently talking and drinking rather than eating and studying. It is within the scope of this invention to postulate some or all of the previously detected activities of a given location. More so, it is within the scope of this invention to rank order the activity suggestions according to the relevance of the previously visiting users to the given current user. As previously described, the system can request confirmation of suggested activities through the user's mobile device.

The system can additionally or alternatively reduce possible location types and/or user activities as a function of the past location type and/or user activity of the positional destination as a function of the time of day. The system can rank possible location types and/or user activities of the positional destination based upon known past time periods corresponding to the time of day of the current user visit. For example, again given Location A, if previous visiting users were recorded to study one or more times during the intervals: 3:00-4:30 PM and 7:30-9:00 PM, and to drink one or more times during the intervals: 4:00-7:00 PM and 8:30 PM-2:00 AM, then a current visiting user at Location A at 3:15 PM is likely studying, at 4:15 PM is likely to be either studying or drinking, and at 1:00 AM is likely to be drinking. More so, if the given user's community members only studied between 3:15-4:30 PM then it is with a higher probability to postulate that the given user is studying rather than drinking at 4:15 PM. Furthermore, if the given user visited Location A previously but only studied, then an even higher probability is that the user when at Location A is studying. It is within the scope of this invention to postulate some or all of the previously detected activities of a given location. More so, it is within the scope of this invention to rank order the activity suggestions according to the relevance of the previously visiting users to the given current user. As previously described, the system can request confirmation of suggested activities through the user's mobile device.

In embodiments of this invention, time context alone can be used to postulate activities. For example, if most days, a user is recorded to be drinking coffee between 9:00-10:00 AM, then, without contradictory information, a plausible activity postulate is that at 9:35, the user's activity is drinking coffee. Again, as previously disclosed, it is within the scope of this invention to rank order the postulated activity suggestions according to the relevance of the previous users to the given current user and/or to obtain confirmation of suggested activities.

Additionally, it is also within the scope of this invention to rank order the time postulates based on frequency of occurrence within the time interval. This rank ordering applies to both location based and location independent time based postulates. For example, if in the interval 4:00-4:30 PM, community members studied 25 times but drank 5 times then, at 4:15, it is with a higher probability to postulate that the given user is studying rather than drinking.

In embodiments of this invention, the system can search and/or use, if available, external, third party information about the positional destination for postulating activities for a given location. For example, third party vendors might provide, either free of charge or for a fee, activity information for a given site. Consider a marketing website of a centralized homepage for a grocery store chain. Such websites are likely to contain addresses of many or all of the associated stores. Since these stores all support shopping, an activity associated with these locations is shopping. Similar information can be derived or purchased from other sources such as but not limited to commercial information repositories. Additionally, maps can be parsed. Given a location of a road, an activity of that location is likely to be driving. Various and alternative third party information gathering approaches and their incorporation into activity classification and postulation can be incorporated into the method and system of this invention.

Suggested activity information, particularly but not limited to information obtained or derived from third party vendors, might be additive or might be contradictory. Thus, combining or reconciling potential activities is needed. The use of voting schemes, biased based on credibility of the source or on frequency, such as majority, or other known techniques, can be incorporated in the method and system of this invention. Note that differing suggested plausible activities may additive or may be contradictory. The use of techniques such as, but not limited to, conflict resolution methods, ontology determination, and clustering, etc., can be incorporated to recognize potential conflicts and to expand classification is within the scope of this invention.

Additionally, the classification of plausible activities based on activities occurring in the surrounding vicinity is likewise within the scope of this invention. For example, consider an unknown location adjacent to two known locations, such as, but not limited to, two neighboring stores or two neighboring beaches. For the neighboring stores, known activities might include shopping and strolling, while for the neighboring beaches, known activities might include sunbathing and swimming. Given location proximity, it is within the scope of this invention to suggest a user's activity at the unknown location to be either shopping and strolling or sunbathing and swimming, respectively. Confirmation can always be obtained for suggested activities and to bias suggested activities based on user familiarity and frequency of occurrence.

In embodiments of this invention, local users can opt to delay their notifications. That is, once a location is visited or an activity occurs, a local user can opt to have the notification of the location or activity be delayed by some period of time. Delaying a notification provides the local user with the ability to notify their community of the location visit or activity occurrence, but still provides the local user time to progress to the next location or activity.

Notifications can be complemented with correlations with other community members. That is, both the local user and their respective community can be automatically notified with a comparison. A comparison, for example but not limited to, can identify other community members having previously conducted a specific activity or having visited a given location previously. Comparisons are made by checking other community member locations and activities against those of the local user. Checking is performed via a search of the location-activity database. If a match exists within a specified or predetermined period of time, a comparison notification is made automatically. The period of time can be arbitrarily set or can follow some logical time quantum such as hour, day, week, etc.

Locations and activities are known by name. However, in addition to a name, locations and activities can have associated personal labels. Labeling locations and activities can detail familiarity to the location and activity. User labels for locations can be surrogate names, for example, “favorite city” for Chicago, can be songs or sound waves, for example song words “my kind of town, Chicago is” for Chicago, can be a picture, for example “the Water Tower” for Chicago, can be a video, for example “a panoramic view of the Chicago skyline” for Chicago, or any combination of these and other multimedia tags supported by the local device. Similarly, user labels can exist for activities. For example, “favorite vice” for drinking wine, or it can be a song or sound wave, for example the song words “a bottle of red” for drinking wine, or it can be a picture, for example, a wine bottle picture for drinking wine, or it can be a video, for example “a panoramic view of a vineyard” for drinking wine, or any combination of these and other multimedia tagging labels supported by the local device.

In embodiments of this invention, local users and community members can comment on their own and each other's locations and activities. Comments can take any of the many multimedia forms provided by the local device. These include, but are not limited to, text, sound, pictures, videos, or any combination thereof. Multiple comments can be made by the local user, their community, or combination thereof. In addition to stating their opinions (commenting), community members can prompt for clarification. That is, by issuing “what” comments, community members request additional information on the posted locations and activities. Additionally, user can “like” their own and each other's locations and activities. By “liking” a location or activity, community members express their satisfaction of their respective community members' presence in terms of location and activity. Multiple community members as well as the local user can “like” a location and activity.

The method and systems of this invention can track vast data on both the local user and their respective community members. These data cover, including but not limited to, locations, activities, and also individuals both who are system users and those who are not. These data can be stored and summarized. A summary of the local user and community member locations, activities, time durations involved in each of these locations and activities, individuals who they encountered, etc., can be computed and presented to the user. This summarization can range from simple statistical aggregation to advanced correlations as derived by any of the many, both individually and combined, machine learning, data mining, business analytics, and statistical techniques known in the art.

Information that can be aggregated or derived can answer, exemplary but not limiting, questions such as: how much time a local user spent doing things, such as, working at home, working out, walking the dog, commuting to work?; how much time a particular community member spent doing things, such as, working at home, working out, walking the dog, commuting to work? (Note that the information derived for the community member is based strictly on the information that that particular community member chose to share.); who are the five most common individuals that a particular user interacts with?; what is the likelihood that after seeing a particular user, the given local user would see a particular different individual?; which activities and locations are most closely associated with each other and when are they most likely to occur?; which three users among a given community are most likely to visit a particular location together?

Local users can be provided with summaries of their locations, durations at these locations, and activities at these locations. Furthermore, at the discretion of the local user, these summaries are made available to their community members.

The system can also generate and maintain both aggregation and derived information. This information can be used to optimize suggestions to avoid obstacles, for example, but not limited to preferred routing of commuting path, promoted target advertising, for example but not limited to location of nearby ice cream store for those users who frequently record “eating ice cream” as an activity, and a host of other informational services known in the art.

The following examples illustrate, without limitation, the above discussed data capturing, storing, analyzing, mining, and presenting MPSM functionalities of this invention. It is to be understood that all changes that come within the spirit of the invention are desired to be protected and thus the invention is not to be construed as limited by these examples.

FIG. 5 illustrates a location summary of an individual user. As shown, two boxes are presented. The top box is a summary of where and how a user spent their last two weekend days, while the bottom box provides a summary of where and how a user spent their last five weekday days. As shown, in both cases, the duration of time spent in a given location is listed. For example, looking at the top window, the user spent about 9 hours in Georgetown in Washington and about 1 hour in O'Hare in Chicago during the last two weekend days. The user was obviously on travel as the user spent less than a minute at home during the weekend.

FIG. 6 illustrates a user's transit summary, which is a summary of the user's transit characterized by speed, namely slow, medium, and fast travel, and when, where, and for how long did this travel occur, namely, duration and initial and terminating locations. The average speed is likewise noted. For example, the user traveled fast from Denver airport to home, a distance of 964.57 miles at an average speed of 291.29 MPH, and it took roughly 3 hours.

FIG. 7 illustrates a user's own activity summary. That is, a summary of the user's weekly activity is provided that includes the frequency of and percentage and absolute time involved in the activity over the past week. For example, the user was at the Four Seasons twice within the week for 3.4% of their reported time or about 4 hours.

FIG. 8 illustrates a user's time summary in comparison to their friends. The summary of the user's time breakdown is made in comparison to others within their community. For example, the percentage of time the user spent at home as compared to that of their friends is roughly 14% (0.14×) versus in transit which is 1.53 times as much.

FIG. 9 illustrates a summary of a user's activities shared with others. The summary of the user's activities is shown providing an indication of the amount of time and activities jointly experienced. For example, the user jointly had sushi with and visited Ophir at his home. Also indicated in the bottom portion of the frame are the names of one's community members that the user did not see (top listing) or interacted with (bottom listing) in the past week.

FIGS. 10 and 11 illustrate views presented to the user of a quantified together board and of a quantified individual board, respectively. FIGS. 10 and 11 represent information in a more pleasing form for presenting to the user. FIG. 10 summarizes time spent and activities experienced together. For example, two users spent 73 hours together this week eating, working, and running. The last time they had drinks together was two weeks ago (bottom right boxes). The last time they were together was 3 days ago (top left box). FIG. 11 summarizes a user's week in review. The week in review highlights the main activities and locations (top half). Likewise summarized are other behavior patterns including anomalies (bottom half).

Embodiments of this invention incorporate picture characters or pictograms into the mobile positional social media domain. The method and system of this invention allow users to define, develop, incorporate, modify, classify, and/or transmit pictograms, such as representing user locations and/or activities, to community members and to global users. In one embodiment, a user of a MPSM device can select or create new one or more pictograms specific to themselves, to their community, or globally, that is, to any user that has access to that one or many particular pictograms. Users can define or redefine existing meanings of each pictogram; a user can incorporate existing, namely already created and defined pictogram, into their messages; a user can associate a picture to a given pictogram; a user can modify existing pictograms both for local and for her/his community; and/or a user can also classify a pictogram as to its type, for example, but not limited to, mood, activity, location, etc.

Any suitable pictogram can be added and/or used in the method and system of this invention. One exemplary pictogram is known as Emoji. Emoji is a commonly used term that generally means picture characters or pictogram. Some Emoji representations are mapped onto Unicode representation and are thus available for use in a variety of desktop and mobile device applications including the invention disclosed herein.

Using the location and/or activity determination methods discussed herein, the MPSM can determine, and possibly announce, activities occurring, having occurred, or are scheduled or likely to occur using pictograms. The pictograms can also be used to associate activities with a given location; the location of interest either being, will be, or was previously visited by a community member or is of relevance to a user request.

In one embodiment of this invention, a method and system of sharing locations and/or activities of a user participating in a MPSM includes the system receiving a user-defined pictogram for a destination and automatically associating the pictogram with the destination. The method desirably also includes the automatic sharing of the pictogram in the social networking service upon further user arrivals at the destination prior to receiving any additional user information. The pictogram desirably corresponds to a user activity at the destination, and can be manually selected by the user from a list of predetermined pictograms or other photos or drawings, etc.

Embodiments of this invention include a system that learns to associate the pictogram with the destination upon further visits. The pictogram can be automatically presented to the user through a mobile device upon reaching the destination for confirmation and/or changing to or selecting a new pictogram. These steps can occur for several visits to the destination, with the goal for automated learning and ultimately to provide an automated sharing of the pictogram for the destination. Where several pictograms have been associated with a destination, the several pictograms can be presented over time for confirmation, preferably in a ranked list. In addition, the method and system can automatically determining one or more of the plurality of pictograms to share at a further arrival at the destinations as a function of an automatically determined context of the further arrival, such as based upon a time of day or the presence of fellow community members also at the destination, as discussed further herein.

The pictograms according to this invention allow for efficient pictogram summaries of user and community activities and/or locations for any predetermined time period, such as a day, week, month, and/or year. FIG. 12 is a mobile device GUI that shows users' timelines of activities via pictograms. The pictogram timeline 140 includes pictograms that provide visualizations of a person's and their community's daily activities. The user activities are visually compared to what others are doing. The user and the community are represented by photographs and their names. The most recent activity is represented by a pictogram 150 on the horizontal timeline 140 that is closest to the user pictogram 142. The remaining pictograms 150′ for each user are showing in order of newest to oldest. The timeline can also display the timing 152 of the most recent pictogram. Feedback by others on the user's activity is also provided. In FIG. 12, one comment is currently available, as shown by the comment notification 155.

In embodiments of this invention, photographs or other data can be associated with the pictograms. In FIG. 12, a camera icon 154 can be associated with, such as by overlapping, any pictogram to show when one or more photographs or other data items are associated with the pictogram. Community users can touch or click the pictogram to display the associated photograph. The camera icon at the bottom of the screen can be used by the user to associate or change photos.

In another embodiment of this invention, users can be grouped by common current or latest activity. As shown in FIG. 12, the first two community members display the same ‘house’ pictogram, indicating a common activity, albeit not necessarily at the same location (i.e., each is that their own home).

FIGS. 13-15 illustrate alternative pictogram summaries of a user's locations and/or activities. FIG. 13 illustrates a summary of a user's daily activities via pictograms. The visualization summary shows the individual's activities by pictogram for several days. FIG. 14 illustrates a pictogram summary of a user's activities on a month-by-month basis. FIG. 15 illustrates a histogram summary of a user's monthly activities aggregated by type and presented as a visualization of an individual's monthly activities.

FIGS. 16-18 illustrate an exemplary embodiment associating pictures with the pictograms. FIG. 16 illustrates the option to take a photograph and associate it with a selected pictogram. Additionally, it is possible to annotate the image with text using the annotating tool at the bottom of the GUI. To assist the user, the system shows or suggests a pictogram representation. The selection of a new pictogram is possible if desired or if the system suggestion is incorrect. FIG. 17 illustrates the option to select a new pictogram to associate with the newly taken photo. FIG. 17 occurs upon tapping the picture in FIG. 16. Two alternative sections exist in FIG. 17: a first section of suggested pictograms, such as based upon learned location information, and a second section with pictograms which are globally available. The system postulates a pictogram to associate with the picture using any of the many learning classification algorithms discussed herein and/or known in the art. FIG. 18 illustrates a system generated suggestion of the location associated with the photograph. The user has the option to accept or modify the annotation.

This invention further provides a means to rapidly display and review user photographs. In one embodiment, the device, such as through an executed application, includes and executes code instructions for providing rapid feedback in an ergonomically convenient, intuitive user interface. The code allows for displaying user photographs or other data in response to a plurality of user hand movements within a continuous user swipe on a mobile device screen. By this user interface method, referred to as the Ownbey-scrub, or “scrub” for short, a user can hold down an icon to select and swipe through a clustered collection of pictures representing activities that occur within a given time span, location, with specific other users, or any other clustering condition. Clustering of items can be accomplished in any of the many known in the art clustering techniques.

In embodiments of this invention, the scrub operates by placing a finger (and holding it) on an icon presented on a touch screen and scrubbing (without lifting off the screen) with that finger horizontally (left or right) or vertically (up or down). In response to the direction of the continuous finger contact/movement, quick feedback is provided to the user in the form of rapidly displayed pictures. Left or right and up or down represent forwards or backwards depending on user preference. User preference might differ due to any orientation (left or right handed) or any physical or logical conditions. By default, right to left and top to bottom is ascending order while left to right and bottom to top is descending order. Composition movements consisting of both vertical and horizontal can also be used. For example, a user might push and hold her/his thumb and scrub right to left, without lifting the hold, scrolling rapidly through her/his daily events from morning to night. Determination of direction of scrolling can be accomplished using any known in the art vector composition methods. Scaling the tracking of the scrub movement based on the number of pictures in the intended scroll and determining when such movement was performed can be done via any known in the art computations as used for such processing in the image analysis, graphics, and user interface domains. Additionally, it is within the scope of the invention to support voice activated commands that support similar scrub operations.

FIGS. 19 and 20 illustrate a user using a scrub technique according to this invention. The scrub allows the user to select a photo associated with a pictogram and then, through one continuous, held contact with the screen, flip through all user photos. In FIG. 19, the user has selected the ‘computer’ pictogram to associate with the photo shown in FIG. 19. By scrubbing to the right, the next photo of FIG. 20 is a photo associated with the ‘office building’ pictogram. Any community comment or feedback on any photo can be displayed by an icon on the photo, and accessed by a different movement, such as scrubbing down toward the icon. The GUI features also include any associated metadata, such as time of day, etc., and arrows showing how to move the finger to retrieve other activities.

FIGS. 21-25 illustrate a community member scrub using an Ownbey-scrub technique. In FIG. 21, a user presses and holds a pictogram 162 on his/her or another user's pictogram timeline 160. The selected pictogram-associated image 164 animates into view, while the finger remains down. In FIG. 21, while continuing to hold, the user slides the finger down (arrow 166) to begin scrubbing through multiple photographs. The pictogram's associated image 164 remains displayed. In FIG. 22, without lifting, the user slides the finger up (arrow 168) to reveal a pictographic feedback selector 170. In FIG. 22, the user taps on the desired pictographic feedback 172, adding it to the photo, as indicated by notification 174 in FIG. 23. In FIG. 23, the user selects an additional pictographic feedback 176 composing an emotional statement that appears in FIG. 24. In FIG. 24, re-continuing the hold, the user slides finger down (arrow 180) to send the feedback and continue viewing. In FIG. 24, having sent the feedback, the user can continue scrubbing to other activities (arrow 182), all while continuing to press the screen. In FIG. 25, the user has continued scrubbing to a new photo 184 representing or associated with a new activity of pictogram 186.

The invention further includes ranking the order the pictures are presented within each scrub, and/or ranking the order the presentation of the pictograms associated with each user. Rank ordering can be based on any of the many ordering criteria disclosed herein and/or known in the art including but not limited to chronological time associated with the set of activities, location of the activities ordered based on bias of locations, proximity to other users—either a specific user or any users within a user's community, proximity to a location where the last photograph was taken, and so forth.

Multiple revenue models are supported in the MPSM domain. These include but are not limited to advertising, support for loyalty programs, and the selling of data, products, and services. The obvious goal of advertising is to generate revenue. However, a more subtle goal of advertisers is to change the user's behavior. That is, if a user always gets a cup of coffee at 8:45 am from one particular vendor, advertisements from different vendors seek to influence the user to get his/her coffee from them rather than from his/her traditional vendor. Such advertisements not only help generate revenue, they can train the system in multiple ways. Such training supports targeted marketing, namely, the selection of advertisements that best match the target user. For example, but not limited to, consider showing coffee advertisements to the user in the abovementioned case. If an advertisement promises a larger coffee volume of the exact same coffee that the traditional vendor serves at an identical price but sales at the new vendor do not increase, then coffee volume is not a discriminator for the user. Similarly if lower prices do not alter the user's purchases, then price is not a concern. Such training can influence other targeted marketing. For example, if the user switched coffee vendors once valet parking was advertised by the new vendor then when offering sushi restaurant advertisements to this particular user, restaurants that provide valet parking should be ranked higher.

The user specific location activity data stored can be used to improve loyalty programs. Typically, restaurants, stores, airlines, hotel chains, etc. all have loyalty programs; many of these loyalty programs rely on membership numbers and recording mechanisms. For example, grocery stores require each purchaser to enter their identity number each time they purchase a good. Other vendors register credit card numbers and track relevant purchases using these registered cards. Registering credit cards or utilizing a membership number is fraught with difficulties, not the least of which involves having a mechanism to record an activity. For example, a user might pay with cash; this would not issue a credit card transaction, and hence, would not record the transaction. Similarly, unless a user identified him/her-self using their membership number, their transaction would not be recorded. Ideally, a vendor would want to recognize the user independently of the user's actions. The disclosed invention supports user tracking without requiring user identification activity. Loyalty programs of vendors, such as but not limited to a restaurant, bar, gym, etc., establishments involve repetitive visits. A user of a MPSM system that frequents that establishment will generate a lengthy log of such visits. The back-end system supporting the application will thus have records that determine the identity of the user, the frequency and duration of each visit, etc. This information can be provided or sold to the vendors for their loyal programs. The information provided to the vendor can be marketed via a subscription service or on demand. Regardless, the information gathering needed to support both marketing plans does not suffer from the abovementioned limitations.

Embodiments of this invention maintain user specific and system wide location activity data. These data are valuable to many vendors for many diverse applications. Thus, one source of revenue is the selling of the collected and derived data. To maintain user satisfaction and trust, privacy concerns must be addressed.

The notification of the present location of users to their community is within the scope of this invention. However, also within the scope of this invention is the notification of current locations of users to third parties. Third party vendors, such as but not limited to delivery services, lose significant funds should they need to coordinate with a user at a particular location at a particular time and the user not be there. Thus, on either a pay-per-use basis or on a subscription service based payment, locations of users can be provided to interested vendors. Inquiry of a user's location can be made via many of the known approaches in the art. Potentially for an additional fee, pushed notifications to a third party vendor of an arrival of a specific user can likewise be supported. Users can also be allowed to block the providing of their current location to non-community members including third party vendors, either for free or for a fee.

The system of this invention desirably maintains location and activity information for all users. A non-limiting example of a product that can be generated from these data is a pictorial landscape of locations and activities. That is, based on collected location and activity information, suggestions for trip activities along with pictures, itineraries, and route suggestions can be sold both in printed form or electronic format. These pictorial summaries can be sold to the consumer directly or to organizations such as hotels, book publishers, etc. to market as their own; this form of indirect sales renders the invention as a secondary information source provider. In both cases, revenue is generated. This information can be made available as a real-time information source. Fees can be charged per request or can serve as a subscription service.

User requests or location inquiries are within the scope of this invention. A user can query information, possibly stored at the central server, regarding activities associated with a given location. Similarly, a user can inquire which location supports a given one or more activities. The information can be the learned information from all users. Optionally, a fee per query can be charged.

Additional services can also be provided. The information maintained is real-time and thus can be used to identify the availability of individuals and resources. A non-limiting example includes an idle limousine chauffeur located near a user who is in need of transportation; these two users can be connected to provide the needed service, namely transportation. By identifying available users or more generally resources, desiring users can be connected to the available resources. Again, fees for this service can be charged on a per request basis or as a subscription service. An additional service involves real-time traffic information. As users are continuously on the move, traffic on routes taken can be assessed. Again, fees for this service can be charged on a per request basis or as a subscription service. A further additional service involves general data aggregation. User data aggregation as disclosed earlier can be sold to data aggregators such as census takers, pollsters, etc. These data can be historical, real-time, categorized data based on any and all stored attributes, etc. Again, fees for this service can be charged on a per request basis or as a subscription service.

Thus, the invention provides a method and system for tracking user locations without the energy consumption of GPS systems. The invention can be implemented with social media systems for sharing locations and/or activities of a user participating in a social networking service. The method is executed by a computer system, preferable through a mobile device, and includes automatically determining a user location and optionally receiving user information about the destination, automatically associating the user information with the destination, and automatically sharing the user information in the social networking service upon further user arrivals at the destination prior to receiving any additional user information. The method and system can provide information and other benefits to both the user and third-parties about the user's activities and locations of these activities.

The invention illustratively disclosed herein suitably may be practiced in the absence of any element, part, step, component, or ingredient which is not specifically disclosed herein.

While in the foregoing detailed description this invention has been described in relation to certain preferred embodiments thereof, and many details have been set forth for purposes of illustration, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that the invention is susceptible to additional embodiments and that certain of the details described herein can be varied considerably without departing from the basic principles of the invention. 

What is claimed is:
 1. A method of determining locations and/or activities of a user participating in a social networking service, the method executed by a computer system and comprising: automatically determining a positional destination of a user; automatically deducing as user information a location type and/or user activity of the positional destination; and automatically sharing the user information in the social networking service.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein deducing as user information comprises: automatically associating the user with a second user at the positional destination, wherein a second user location and/or second user activity is determined; and automatically inferring the location type and/or user activity from the second user location and/or activity.
 3. The method of claim 2, further comprising automatically asking the first user for confirmation of the location type and/or user activity based upon the associated second user location and/or second user activity before sharing.
 4. The method of claim 1, wherein deducing as user information comprises searching third party information about the positional destination.
 5. The method of claim 1, further comprising automatically storing past location type and/or user activity of the positional destination, wherein the user information is automatically deduced as a function of the stored past location type and/or user activity of the positional destination.
 6. The method of claim 5, wherein the past location type and/or user activity of the positional destination is from a second user.
 7. The method of claim 5, wherein the past location type and/or user activity of the positional destination is from each of a plurality of social media community members of the user.
 8. The method of claim 5, further comprising reducing possible location types and/or user activities as a function of the past location type and/or user activity of the positional destination.
 9. The method of claim 5, further comprising ranking the past location type and/or user activity of the positional destination for deducing the user information.
 10. The method of claim 5, automatically comparing context of the positional destination with past context of the past location type and/or user activity of the positional destination.
 11. The method of claim 10, wherein the past context comprises the past location type and/or user activity of the positional destination from each of a plurality of social media community members of the user.
 12. The method of claim 10, wherein the context comprises time of day.
 13. The method of claim 12, further comprising ranking possible location type and/or user activity of the positional destination during a time period corresponding to the time of day.
 14. The method of claim 10, wherein the context comprises presence of any community members.
 15. The method of claim 1, further comprising automatically determining a user has arrived at the destination.
 16. A method of determining locations and/or activities of a user participating in a social networking service, the method executed by a computer system and comprising: automatically determining a positional destination of a user; automatically determining context information about the positional destination without input by the user; automatically deducing as user information a location type and/or user activity of the positional destination from the context information; and automatically sharing the user information in the social networking service.
 17. The method of claim 16, wherein the context information comprises time-dependent information, community information, and/or third-party information about the positional destination.
 18. The method of claim 16, further comprising comparing past context information for past visits to the positional destination, by the user and/or community members of the user, to a current context of the positional destination to deduce the user information.
 19. The method of claim 16, further comprising reducing possible location types and/or user activities as a function of the past location type and/or user activity of the positional destination for a given time period.
 20. The method of claim 16, wherein deducing as user information comprises: automatically associating the user with a second user at the positional destination, wherein a second user location and/or second user activity is determined; and automatically inferring the location type and/or user activity from the second user location and/or activity. 